I woke up to Kangaroos in the mist today at Callubri Station.
There are moments in my life when I have instantly realised that I am a witness to something special and that all else must wait. When the magic of the moment begs me to scramble out of bed and run out in my PJ’s with my camera in hand, to embrace & capture the moment. I knew there were mere seconds before the kangaroos fled. They are incredibly skittish out here. There was no time to change my lens but I quickly glanced at my settings, which are now second nature to me. It isn’t everyday that the Universe conjures up such magic. When she does, I feel obliged to give it my best shot.
I love the energy of an early morning sunrise. There is no other time of day that is quite like it. The sun breaks through and floods the landscape with colour and light and you feel truly thankful to be alive. I enjoy the chorus of the birds as they flap their feathers and fly off to find their worms, clearly basking in the warmth too.
Photography is the medium I use for both my meditation and my reflection.
It is a tool together with my writing that enables me to convey my love for this Continent that is now my home. Tomorrow I will step outside my comfort zone again, to do my first photography workshop for people outside my camera club world and friendship groups. I feel energised and ready now.
It is now almost 14 years since I learnt to use my camera outside of it’s automatic settings and I hope I have a few gems to share. 14 years since I discovered the importance of reading histograms, of looking at the world from different perspectives, and of creating depth with interesting foregrounds. Most importantly I discovered the Exposure Triangle. I learnt I could be creative by the technical choices I made between ISO, Aperture and Shutter Speed, to capture the most important ingredient I had no control over—Natural Light.
Photography is the perfect medium for that marriage between my left and right brain.
Perhaps that’s why it works so well for me. So much of that initial learning in my journey was all about settings. Of learning how to shoot and process a RAW image. I also realised that getting it right in camera was the foundation for a good image and that no amount of Lightroom or Photoshop skills can really bring an image alive if we didn’t shoot it right in the first place.
Once navigating your camera buttons becomes muscle memory, that’s when your creativity begins to flourish. There is a lot to learn as a beginner photographer and at times it can seem overwhelming. But if you persist and take baby steps to create a solid foundation, then you have a hobby that will keep both your mind, body and spirit engaged for the rest of your life.
When I look back to that beginning, I could not have dreamt how far this hobby would take me and I am incredible grateful for all those photographers who brought me to this point and for my friends and family who came along for the ride. I know there is so much more to learn and that my insatiable curiosity will take me much further.
I hope you find inspiration in my story and that it will also be a catalyst for whatever dreams you have not yet realised in your own life. I could say that you are only limited by your imagination and self belief but that would be a lie. It has also been a lot of bloody hard work!